Tolkien's Creation and Miyazaki's Nature
In Princess Mononoke, we see humans and gods at war. The forests and rivers and mountains are the domain of the gods and when humans farm or build factories, they cannot help but trespass upon sacred ground. How can war be anything but inevitable?
Lady Iboshi employs prostitutes and lepers turning them into skilled laborers and giving them stable room and board. She defends them and cares for them and they give her unshakeable loyalty. But this utopia depends on the iron ore found under the mountain inhabited by gods and Lady Iboshi is willing to wage that costly war. We see not only men and gods in conflict but war between one human tribe and another. While Iron Town functions for the good of its people just as the gods seek the good of the trees and rivers, human greed willingly destroys both for short-sighted achievement.
Prince Ashitaka comes from a tribe that has apparently lived peacefully amongst nature but his tribe is dwindling. He suggests at the end that there is a better way and that he will help Iron Town and Lady Iboshi find it. We however don't get to see what that might look like. Presumably Iron Town will remain.
Like Miyazaki, J.R.R.Tolkien hates industrialism. He dislikes the harsh grinding and clanking, the acrid fumes, the smothering smoke. He despises how men impose their wills on the earth, tearing down the old and beautiful for the new, shiny, and -- ultimately -- ugly. So we see the tree shepherds mourn the thinning forest as the wizard Saruman makes way for his warworks. Dwarves and men are always striving: striving for territory, or gold, or jewels, or simple ownership. The dwarves' greed in Moriah awakens an angry evil. Miyazaki showed us how a god could become a demon when afflicted by evil. The balrog is only a demon but like Miyazaki's gods, he answers human evil with evil anger.
Tolkien contrasts the brute domination of the world by men with the elves. The elves worked among nature and with nature with techniques that followed the nature temperaments of wood or stone or metal. They brought out beautiful things the way that Michelangelo said that he brought statues out of stone -- it was already there, waiting for someone with the skill to release it. The elves understood the world and so they could steward it to its highest potential.
Our current debates over climate change and economic stewardship point to the fact that, as the industrial revolution has given way to the tech revolution, we still don't really know how to live as good stewards. Perhaps it will take us millennia. After all, the elves lived for far longer than men. They gave way much as an old man gives way to an adolescent. We're still learning our environment. We haven't been taking temperature readings for all that long, really. We've obliterated species and disrupted ecosystems -- passenger pigeons and buffalo in the former case, rabbits in Australia and raccoons in Japan in the latter. We watch oil spills clog seabird wings and nets strangle seals. (Though I want to know: has there never been a case of crude oil escaping subterranean vaults before humans pried them open?)
[Rabbit trail: Watch the BBC's Tudor Monastery Farm or Tales from the Green Valley sometime -- they're all on YouTube. Historian Ruth Goodman constantly points out: Farmers may not have had a technical explanation for why their farming techniques worked, but they knew that they did work. They sent out their pigs to eat roots, the cows and sheep to eat weeds, the chickens to eat bugs, each preparing the farmland by fertilizing the soil and removing the parasites and weeds that could choke their crops. Good environmental stewardship meant not starving.]
Both Miyazaki and Tolkien point out that the violence between man and man is perhaps a greater evil than the violence done to the earth. Iron Town is attacked by rivals while the men are out hunting the god of the forest. The women hold out, but the decimation of the war equals the decimation of the mountain forest when the god is beheaded. Which is worse? Miyazaki tells us: both.
Miyazaki captures this truth: humans are at war with the gods and we initiated it. Tolkien tells us that there is a better way. The elves show us although as the age of elves ends and the age of men begins, there will be changes. We are stewards, meant to work alongside the Creator. That means that we can work alongside the gods. We will work alongside them someday.
Easter is approaching. We remember a time when we did kill the God. But unlike Miyazaki's gods who only interact when provoked, this God chose not to be provoked, not to unleash His anger. Instead, He rose from the dead. He needed no human help. He simply did it. He has released life into the world and mankind can never conquer it.
Anyway, go see Princess Mononoke and go to church on Easter.
Lady Iboshi employs prostitutes and lepers turning them into skilled laborers and giving them stable room and board. She defends them and cares for them and they give her unshakeable loyalty. But this utopia depends on the iron ore found under the mountain inhabited by gods and Lady Iboshi is willing to wage that costly war. We see not only men and gods in conflict but war between one human tribe and another. While Iron Town functions for the good of its people just as the gods seek the good of the trees and rivers, human greed willingly destroys both for short-sighted achievement.
Prince Ashitaka comes from a tribe that has apparently lived peacefully amongst nature but his tribe is dwindling. He suggests at the end that there is a better way and that he will help Iron Town and Lady Iboshi find it. We however don't get to see what that might look like. Presumably Iron Town will remain.
Like Miyazaki, J.R.R.Tolkien hates industrialism. He dislikes the harsh grinding and clanking, the acrid fumes, the smothering smoke. He despises how men impose their wills on the earth, tearing down the old and beautiful for the new, shiny, and -- ultimately -- ugly. So we see the tree shepherds mourn the thinning forest as the wizard Saruman makes way for his warworks. Dwarves and men are always striving: striving for territory, or gold, or jewels, or simple ownership. The dwarves' greed in Moriah awakens an angry evil. Miyazaki showed us how a god could become a demon when afflicted by evil. The balrog is only a demon but like Miyazaki's gods, he answers human evil with evil anger.
Tolkien contrasts the brute domination of the world by men with the elves. The elves worked among nature and with nature with techniques that followed the nature temperaments of wood or stone or metal. They brought out beautiful things the way that Michelangelo said that he brought statues out of stone -- it was already there, waiting for someone with the skill to release it. The elves understood the world and so they could steward it to its highest potential.
Our current debates over climate change and economic stewardship point to the fact that, as the industrial revolution has given way to the tech revolution, we still don't really know how to live as good stewards. Perhaps it will take us millennia. After all, the elves lived for far longer than men. They gave way much as an old man gives way to an adolescent. We're still learning our environment. We haven't been taking temperature readings for all that long, really. We've obliterated species and disrupted ecosystems -- passenger pigeons and buffalo in the former case, rabbits in Australia and raccoons in Japan in the latter. We watch oil spills clog seabird wings and nets strangle seals. (Though I want to know: has there never been a case of crude oil escaping subterranean vaults before humans pried them open?)
[Rabbit trail: Watch the BBC's Tudor Monastery Farm or Tales from the Green Valley sometime -- they're all on YouTube. Historian Ruth Goodman constantly points out: Farmers may not have had a technical explanation for why their farming techniques worked, but they knew that they did work. They sent out their pigs to eat roots, the cows and sheep to eat weeds, the chickens to eat bugs, each preparing the farmland by fertilizing the soil and removing the parasites and weeds that could choke their crops. Good environmental stewardship meant not starving.]
Both Miyazaki and Tolkien point out that the violence between man and man is perhaps a greater evil than the violence done to the earth. Iron Town is attacked by rivals while the men are out hunting the god of the forest. The women hold out, but the decimation of the war equals the decimation of the mountain forest when the god is beheaded. Which is worse? Miyazaki tells us: both.
Miyazaki captures this truth: humans are at war with the gods and we initiated it. Tolkien tells us that there is a better way. The elves show us although as the age of elves ends and the age of men begins, there will be changes. We are stewards, meant to work alongside the Creator. That means that we can work alongside the gods. We will work alongside them someday.
Easter is approaching. We remember a time when we did kill the God. But unlike Miyazaki's gods who only interact when provoked, this God chose not to be provoked, not to unleash His anger. Instead, He rose from the dead. He needed no human help. He simply did it. He has released life into the world and mankind can never conquer it.
Anyway, go see Princess Mononoke and go to church on Easter.
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